KOCHI: Chef Thomas Zacharias thinks he would be chaat, if ever he were to be a dish. “A plate of bhelpuri. It contains contrasting elements but is simultaneously balanced. Full of surprises, it makes people happy,” he says. And how accurate is he. Kochi-native Thomas of The Bombay Canteen, Kamala Mills, Mumbai, was in his hometown for Christmas. A long-standing tradition celebrated in style, Thomas did his part by roasting a duck he procured from Mumbai.
This year has been Thomas’s year. The Bombay Canteen was voted India’s best restaurant at the Condé Nast Traveller and Himalayan Sparkling Top Restaurant Awards. The chef himself has bagged Himalayan Sparkling Raw and Fine Chef of the Year for constantly reinventing Indian food by travelling to far-flung places in the country. Yet, the humble man talks about the milestone his restaurant achieved, over his own. “What really made me happier was that our restaurant got voted the number one. A restaurant is a collective. Such recognition means a lot more for the team,” he says.
Thomas’s journey was lined with ‘naadan’ curries and French cheeses. His grandmother, fondly called ‘Ammama’ lit the stove, or rather, lay the foundations. “She would perpetually be cooking at some point of the day and somehow everything she made brought a smile to peoples’ faces. I was a witness to it and that got me hooked,” the chef continues. When he turned 16, he expressed his desire to be a chef. Fortunately for him, and now for us, his parents agreed. That led to hotel management at the Welcomgroup Graduate School of Hotel Administration in Manipal, further which he flew to the US and tightened the strings of his apron at the prestigious Culinary Institute of America, Hyde Park, New York in 2007. “Once I graduated, I applied to the best restaurants in the world. I was posted at La Bernardin, a three-star Michelin French restaurant in NYC, where I learnt from the best,” he says.
After a year, Thomas decided to head back to his home country and began working at Olive Bar and Kitchen, Bandra, Mumbai. “I grew from a cook to a chef. Somewhere along the way I realised that I had to travel and taste European cuisines,” Thomas says. He set sail and took a four-month trip across France, Italy, and Spain. “I had an epiphany on that trip. I realised how little I had done to explore my own cuisines,” he continues. He then turned back and began looking at Indian food differently. The oven timer rang at the very instant, and he donned the chef hat at The Bombay Canteen. Nevertheless, Thomas is an honest man and having never cooked Indian food professionally, he felt he must travel across India to ‘taste’ authentic Indian food. The rest is (food)history.
“I found my career mission on that trip. I saw a whole different side of India and Indian food. I realised I wanted to bring misrepresented Indian food to people through my way of storytelling through social media. That’s what we, The Bombay Canteen has done - showcase Indian food using local, seasonal ingredients in a fun way so people are excited about it and constantly keep coming back,” he says. And how he does it. “I immerse myself in local cuisines, cook with the locals, go to their homes, understand the foundations of those cuisines, the flavours, learn recipes, and they trigger new dishes at the restaurant thereby creating a backstory for every dish,” he says.
And what he does see for the food industry in the future? “What we know as fine-dining, stark white stiff tablecloth, where the service is plated beyond a point of recognition is going to be dissolved. Sustainability is going to be an important part of what we all care about. Indian food is going to be big in a big way- I’d like to call the Indian food movement and I’m happy to be leading the charge,” he adds.